


When Night Seemed Forever

by lunasenzanotte



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Atlético Madrid, Blood Drinking, Friendship, M/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-22
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-02 21:35:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5264456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunasenzanotte/pseuds/lunasenzanotte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Falling in love with a human is never a good idea if you‘re a vampire. Even less when the human is your blood donor whom you know you will kill sooner or later. But who said Saúl Ñíguez ever had good ideas?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Because the Atleti babies need more love. Because I miss the times they were together. And who said vampires can’t have teenage issues?
> 
> This was actually supposed to be half-crack. It ended up being darker than I intended.

Sometimes it’s nice to have someone watch over you. Sometimes it gets a little creepy. And sometimes it’s the combination of both.

Saúl knows that Óliver used to have a crush on him for a couple decades. He kind of didn’t know what to do back then, so he just kept ignoring it until it seemingly faded. He still feels like Óliver likes him a bit too much for a friend, maybe he also watches him a bit more than a friend should, but Saúl has learned to live with it.

When Saúl thinks about it, all Óliver ever does is watching him. He remembers his jealous glances when Saúl was given his blood donor and could stop feeding on his parents’ ones. Óliver looked so  _miserable_  back then that Saúl didn’t even have the heart to make fun of him being a baby vampire. And he had kind of dreamt about making fun of all his younger friends once it would happen. But all he could do then was to slip a comforting arm around Óliver’s shoulders. “Your time will come, don’t worry,” he whispered. “So stop being such a miserable baby vampire.”

“The world will end before that,” Óliver mumbled gloomily. 

“What does it matter to you, you’re immortal.”

“The problem is that Simeone is immortal as well. And he’ll preside the Council until the end of time, _our_  time!” Óliver whined. “And for him I’ll be a baby forever. Too bad there are no real vampire hunters anymore.” 

The truth is that Óliver is a miserable baby vampire by nature. He still has human cravings and instincts. No matter what Simeone does and how many times he scolds him, they always find him hanging out with humans. To give Óliver credit, he is never tempted to bite any of those humans. He just goes to the cinema, hangs around football pitches or eats burgers with them. He simply does the things a nineteen years old boy would do, were he really nineteen and not a couple hundred years old. 

Maybe there is a reason why Simeone still considers him a baby. But Saúl isn’t sure Óliver will ever grow up in this sense. He‘s stopped minding this part of him as well. After all, he doesn’t have that many friends to be too choosy.

Óliver is always somewhere behind the corner watching him, and he’s the only one who cares about Saúl enough to notice something is wrong. His parents are always busy with the politics and parties, like all vampire aristocrats. And Saúl wouldn’t even want them to worry and ask him what the matter was. He couldn’t tell them anyway.

The thing is, Saúl is in love.

Not that there is anything wrong with being in love, even when you’re a vampire. There are of course couples in the vampire world. Nobody cares if they are a man and a woman, two men or two women, either. Vampires don’t have to care about all the family politics since they can’t have children. Turning and adopting a human child is a whole different thing. 

The problem is that Saúl is not in love with another vampire. He is in love with a human, and if things can be even worse, the human in question is his blood donor. 

Donor is actually not an accurate term. The word itself suggests that the person should be giving the blood _willingly_ , which is almost never the case. The donor is someone assigned by the Council for the vampire to feed on. The less important vampires sometimes share the donors. Saúl belongs to the vampire aristocracy, so he has his donor to himself. Nobody knows how the Council gets hold of the donors, but the possibilities are endless. Some of them more gruesome than others.

Javier is Saúl’s first donor. And most certainly not his last, but Saúl prefers not to think about that.

 

* * *

 

Saúl drags his feet to his family’s house. It’s a big mansion in Victorian style. Its big garden has always reminded Saúl of a cemetery, even though there are no graves in it. It’s just the atmosphere and the remnants of a stone pool with its creepy gargoyles in the high grass. 

His parents are most likely not home, but he still sneaks through the corridors like a thief. When he opens the door of Javier’s room, the black cloud inside him melts into nothing. The warmth radiating from Javier’s body and the smell of him are overwhelming. Saúl feels almost alive again, or at least the way he thinks it felt when he was still alive.

He remembers the first time like it was yesterday. He remembers the way Javier’s heart was beating madly in his chest, the way he was so utterly terrified of Saúl... But Saúl was so hungry, so overwhelmed by being officially an adult vampire, it didn’t even cross his mind that he should comfort the boy. He just took what he needed and then was too drunk to ponder on it anymore. It felt like he was floating, like he could do anything he wanted. 

When he sobered up a little bit, though, he realized that he was acting like a douche. Not by the vampire standards, of course, but by all other standards. He was almost ashamed, even though he knew that he had nothing to be ashamed of, by the vampire standards of course.

Saúl became probably the first vampire ever to apologize to his donor. Not that he would want to become famous for it. 

_You’re only lucky you sucked too much of my blood_ , Javier said then. _Otherwise I’d kick your ass right now._ And then he started laughing, and at that moment Saúl fell desperately, hopelessly in love with him.

“Your tastes still haven’t changed?” Javier asks with a sort of a mischievous smile. 

Saúl shakes his head. “Nah, you know you’re my favorite food.” He does notice that Javier looks a bit paler and more tired than before. His rational judgment tells him that he should wait longer, at least a few more days. His body tells him otherwise, though. 

He’s never really understood how it all functions but he knows one thing. Even though the body produces the blood again, the vampire changes it. Like Saúl slowly poisons it and prevents it from producing again in the necessary quantity. Javier’s blood changes, Saúl’s hunger does not.

One day he will kill him.

He runs his fingers over Javier’s neck and takes a deep breath to calm down a little bit so that he’s able to control himself better. It doesn’t work. The days when he had to comfort Javier, to calm him down, are gone. The roles are now inverted. Javier kisses him slowly, shifts under him to find a more comfortable position. He barely moves when Saúl sinks his teeth in his neck.

The wave of euphoria and pleasure hits Saúl almost immediately. It feels like coming alive again, almost like the blood is his and runs through his veins again. He loses track of time. His mind is blank, there is nothing but that feeling humans will never understand.

Javier lifts his hand and tries to push him away weakly. It registers in Saúl’s mind, but only distantly. Only when Javier lets out a soft gasp, he pulls his teeth out, forcing himself to do so. He wills himself to stop listening to his inner voice that tells him he’s still a tiny bit hungry. He tries to convince himself he had enough. It  _has to_  be enough. 

Javier looks at him and tries to sit up. 

“Don’t,” Saúl stops him. “Don’t move.”

He tucks him under the covers, frets over him like he does every time, reminds himself to bring him some food with lots of sugar later, following all the instructions he’s ever managed to find about human blood that he knows can’t and won’t save Javier anyway.

“So next time?” Javier whispers.

Saúl doesn’t have time to answer, even if he knew what to say. By the time he takes a breath, Javier’s eyes are already closed, his breath shallow but regular. Saúl curls up next to him and wishes vampires could cry.

 

* * *

 

Saúl doesn’t see Óliver, but he can feel the pair of dark eyes on him when he sits on the low wall behind their house. He’s so used to Óliver stalking him that when he’s not somewhere behind him, Saúl actually feels lonely.

“You really love him, don’t you?” 

Saúl turns around and gives Óliver a pained smile. He feels like there’s no need to state the obvious.

Óliver sits next to him and pays him back with a serious look that somehow doesn’t fit him. “Then you should do something about it.” 

Not that Saúl hasn’t thought about it. But the only thing he could think of was turning Javier, and that was out of the question. First, he wouldn’t do that to him. Second, he wasn’t an alpha vampire, so he couldn’t turn anyone. And he was sure that if he came to his father - or Simeone - and said “could you please turn my donor because I’m in love with him”, they would rip his head off. Literally.

“If I don’t feed, I die. If I feed, he dies. There’s nothing I can do.”

Óliver bites on his lower lip like he does every time he is about to say or do something against his better judgment. “Actually, there is.”

Saúl raises his head and looks at him. “What do you mean?” 

“I like you too much,” Óliver says with a sigh. “Because when I saw you looking like you were about to die for the second time, I stole a few books from the Council’s library. And I  _read_  them.” The face he makes suggests that it was a huge sacrifice. “And I found something you could do.”

“Well?” Saúl asks excitedly. 

“But it‘s forbidden. Forbidden with a capital F.” 

“I don‘t care.” 

“If the Council finds out, they'll imprison your soul forever and burn your body. Do you still want to hear it?” 

“Yes.”

Óliver shakes his head exasperatedly. “I thought so.”

 

* * *

 

Saúl looks skeptical when Óliver asks him to meet him at night in an old, abandoned church. The place is scary even for a vampire and Saúl has never been there before. But when he sees it, he understands that this is where Óliver always spends time sulking after yet another argument with Simeone. The chocolate wrappers and empty cans of soda scattered all over the place speak for themselves.

“I can’t ask this from you,” Saúl whispers. They are walking up the old narrow staircase and Óliver is carrying a heavy box. “I mean... disrespecting the Council because of... my stupidity.”

“Simeone can’t really expect my loyalty. He refused to give me my blood donor without telling me the reason. Twice.” Óliver drops the box on the ground with a loud thud and wipes his forehead. It's a force of habit that either never died out or that he simply learned from his human friends. Vampires don’t sweat. “I’m such an idiot, though,” he sighs. “I should just let you kill him and then I’d have you all to myself. Why am I even helping you?”

“Because you’re amazing. And my best friend. And much more clever than you look.”

“I’d let you continue because I like listening to this, but we don’t have time for that,” Óliver grins. He opens the box and takes out a cage with four white birds. “So, you understand why this is forbidden, don’t you?” he asks.

“Why?”

“Because doves are like God’s favorite birds or something. And the vampires are the damned, but... Whoever wrote that book I read thought we had hope for salvation at the end. Like at the end of everything when Jesus comes back and all that jazz.”

Saúl wonders if Óliver shouldn’t stop hanging out with human teenagers indeed. A few decades ago he still had the noble vocabulary of the 18th century. Now Saúl barely understands him.

“So if we drank the blood of doves, it would really piss God off.”

“Is that why we’re doing it in a church?” Saúl asks skeptically.

Óliver waves his hand. “If God didn’t utterly hate me, He wouldn’t have let a vampire turn me in the first place. And if us two ever meet, we’re going to have a serious talk.” 

Saúl kind of already pities God.

“They would think it strange if you stopped feeding on your donor. The idea is that if you drink a bit of this, you won’t need to drink as much from... Javier.”

“All right,” Saúl nods. He’s so desperate that he doesn’t care anymore. He doesn’t even think that the sight of Óliver, his cute little baby vampire friend, killing a dove in front of him is creepy or terrifying. “Ugh, this is so disgusting,” he still makes a face when Óliver hands him a dead dove.

“I’d pour the blood in a fancy cup for you and decorate it with a paper umbrella, but we don’t have time for that. I don’t want to be caught with the bird in my hands by one of Simeone’s spies.”

The thought makes Saúl forget about what is or isn’t disgusting. If he’s to be honest with himself, it doesn’t taste all that bad. There’s not the usual pleasure in it, but it diminishes the hunger. He’s almost sure now that this could work. Maybe not forever, but until they find a better solution.

 

* * *

 

He is in much better mood when he returns home. He doesn't hide in the shadows anymore. He even manages to smile at his mother when he meets her in the hallway in all her 16th-century glory. A pair of heavy earrings are dangling from her ears and the fangs she, unlike the younger vampires, never hides, shine menacingly.

“You look great, mother,” Saúl says.

“Thank you,” she smiles. “Have you eaten yet?”

“No, no, I’m... just on my way.”

She nods and picks up the black fan she never lets go of when she goes out. Rumor has it she has a silver needle hidden inside the handle, to use on possible enemies. She always denies it when asked, but the truth is that she’d never let Saúl touch the fan. “Enjoy your meal,” she says.

“Thank you,” Saúl says despite the urge to cringe. “Have fun.” 

When she walks out of the house, Saúl almost runs to Javier’s room. 

“No biting?” Javier raises his brows when Saúl just kisses him and settles on the bed next to him. 

“Why? Do you miss it?” Saúl narrows his eyes.

“Me? Oh, come on, who always storms inside this room and almost sucks the life out of me?”

They both laugh, but there’s some uneasiness in it. Mainly Javier’s voice trembles when he speaks. “Do it,” he says, his voice raspy and foreign to Saúl’s ears. “Do it. I’m ready.”

For some mysterious reason, Saúl feels the urge to laugh. But the timing is inappropriate, so he just leans closer to Javier and cradles the back of his neck. “Ready for what?” he whispers.

“For whatever comes next.” He looks Saúl in the eyes and his lips shiver. 

“You mean that you’ve made peace with your soul?”

Javier nods and suddenly he looks like a child to Saúl. Saúl can imagine him with the rosary beads he keeps in the drawer next to his bed. He doesn’t think he made peace with his soul before his own death. He wonders what it feels like.

"Don't worry," he whispers. "I'm not going to let this happen. Ever. I promise." He kisses Javier hastily, swallowing down the question he was going to ask.

 

* * *

 

As with every plan Saúl's ever had, something goes wrong. He doesn't know what he did wrong, whether it was his frequent visits of the abandoned church or simply the fact that his donor wasn't dead yet. But when Simeone's spies surround him, it doesn't even matter.

The older vampires look disgusted, almost horrified. Saúl knows some of them, mainly Miranda, Simeone's right hand. His presence doesn't make the situation any better. Bargaining with him is out of the question. 

“You?” Miranda gasps.  

Saúl drops the dead bird. Miranda takes a step back, carefully avoiding it. “We thought it was someone...” he mumbles. “Hell, Ñíguez, have you gone completely mad?” 

Saúl gulps.  _It‘s over_ , runs through his mind.  _There‘s no way out of this._  They caught him with the bird in his hands. Hell, he still has a drop of its blood on his lower lip.

“ _What do you want me to do?_ ” Óliver’s voice sounds somewhere in his mind and Saúl almost jumps up.

It leaves him speechless for a moment. Telepathy is a skill only the adult vampires are supposed to have. At least he’s never heard about any of the youngsters acquiring it before they were found mature enough to have their own donor. Either Simeone missed something out, or he really has something against Óliver personally. 

Saúl resists the urge to look around and search for him, wherever he’s hiding and watching them from. Miranda doesn’t know Óliver is there and it has to stay that way if they’re to have at least some hope. “ _Save him,_ ” he thinks, forcing his mind to transfer the message. It’s never been his strong point. “ _Javier. You have to save him._ ”

“Well, let’s go,” Miranda says and grips Saúl’s arm. “Simeone won’t be happy about this, of that I’m sure.”

 

* * *

 

Javier jumps up when the door flies open and a young vampire storms in. “Who are you?” he asks. “What do you want?”

“I see I wasn’t worth mentioning for Saúl,” Óliver makes a face. “I’m Óliver.” 

“Oh,” Javier says and visibly relaxes. “I know who you are now.”

“At least that,” Óliver mumbles.

“But... what are you doing here? Where is Saúl?”

Something unsettling appears in Óliver's eyes for a moment. “You have to go with me. Now.” He reaches for Javier, who jumps to the other side of the room. He holds an ancient candleholder full of burning candles in front of him. He’s not entirely sure about it, but he’s heard vampires were afraid of fire. Or well, that fire could burn a vampire at least.

Óliver sighs deeply and walks up to him. “I really don’t have time for this,” he says. Then he blows the candles off calmly, takes the candleholder from Javier and tosses it to the corner of the room.

He’s so bored and annoyed that it pisses Javier off more than it scares him. In the next moment, Javier attempts sneaking past him to get to the door. 

Óliver grabs the back of his shirt and pulls him back like it's a football match. “Stop it, stupid... human... being!” he mumbles while trying to pacify the trashing boy.

"Let go of me!" Javier snarls. "What do you want from me?"

“Saúl sacrificed himself for you!” Óliver yells at him. “Would you at least stop acting like a baby and let me explain it someplace safer?”

Even if he wanted to say something after that, Javier can't find his voice to do it.

 

* * *

 

“So what is the reason behind this madness?” Simeone asks.

“Apparently his blood donor,” Miranda shrugs. “He says he wanted to keep him alive.”

“What kind of nonsense is that?” Simeone half rises from his chair. “What is so special about that donor?”

_Many things_ , Saúl wants to say, but he knows better. Miranda just shrugs again, apparently annoyed by the fact that Simeone is looking for reasons instead of just sending Saúl where he belongs.

“Bring that donor here. I want to see what kind of donor I should never choose again before I get rid of him,” Simeone shakes his head and drinks a bit of red liquid from a golden cup. 

Miranda exchanges worried looks with the other spies. “My lord, we wanted to bring him here right away, but...” 

“But what?”

“He’s gone.”

Saúl almost passes out from relief. Simeone can’t believe his ears. “Gone? Gone where? And how?” he shouts.

“We don’t know, my lord,” Miranda says. “But we’re missing someone else as well.”

“Who?”

“Óliver, my lord.” 

Simeone jumps up like something stabbed him. “Óliver? What does he have to do with this all?”

Miranda now looks frustrated. He’s the one being asked questions, but he understands nothing of this madness. Simeone sits in his chair again. “Find them. Both of them,” he says. “I should have known that when it’s about humans, Óliver would be involved in it. I can always smell humans from him before he even enters this building.”

“Yes, my lord,” Miranda says and motions for the other vampires to take Saúl away.

Simeone just shakes his head. “This is pathetic,” he snorts. “Humans. What are they going to be obsessed with next? Racoons?”


	2. Two

It’s well past midnight and the park is empty, except for two boys sitting on a bench with a bag of McDonald’s takeaway. Javier looks a bit skeptically at Óliver, who is happily munching on a cheeseburger. “Are you sure that you’re... a vampire?” he asks. 

“Unfortunately, yes,” Óliver says and reaches for his milkshake. “Well, I was born in 1690, so unless my birth certificate is fake, I’m either a vampire or the oldest human on planet Earth. The latter would be kinda cool, though.”

“So Saúl actually played a scary vampire in front of me and all of the vampires are like this, or you’re just really weird?”

“I’m weird, but Saúl is no scary vampire either,” Óliver makes a face. “Scary vampire, Saúl. He’s even afraid of the dark.”

“Well, so what happened exactly?” Javier asks. “Why do they want to... can we call it ‘kill him’?”

“He broke the law,” Óliver explains. “In the worst possible way. Because he wanted to save you. And I was helping him with it. Don’t ask me why. I must have been out of my mind.” 

“And what are you going to do now?” 

“Now?” Óliver blinks. “What do you want me to do?” 

Javier looks genuinely shocked. “He’s your friend! You have to do something! If you told them...”

Óliver shakes his head with a sad smile. “Whatever I tell them, they won’t take me seriously. They never do. Mainly Simeone.”

“Who is Simeone?”

“That’s the guy who told Saúl it was okay to plunge his teeth in your neck and suck your blood,” Óliver grins. “The head of the vampire Council.”

“Fine. So they are going to... don’t make me repeat it, and it’s because of me,” he says. “And I’m sitting here doing nothing, with a guy who’s supposed to be dead for more than three hundred years.”

“Thank you.”

“Sorry.”

“No, don’t be,” Óliver shakes his head. “But I don't know what to do. I'm just doing what Saúl asked me to do. He asked me to save you. So I'm trying to keep you alive. But saving Saúl wasn't a part of the plan."

“Let's make it a part of it, then,” Javier says resolutely. 

 

* * *

 

Javier feels strange when he trails behind Óliver. This is his world, the human world, but suddenly he feels lost in it. Óliver suddenly stops and stares at an empty space between two buildings. 

“What are you doing?” Javier asks.

"There used to be a house," Óliver mumbles. 

"When? In the eighteenth century?"

Óliver gives him an annoyed glance and then rubs his temples as if he has a headache.

“What’s wrong with you?” Javier asks.

“Nothing." 

“It’s not nothing,” Javier states, inspecting him more closely. “You’re hungry. Saúl always looks like this when he’s hungry.”

“Well, so I am!” Óliver shrugs. “But it doesn’t matter because I ran away with you. So I can’t really go to my parents‘ house to have dinner right now, can I?”

Javier bites his lip and looks at him. “We could...”

“No, we couldn’t.”

“Why?”  

“Because if by some miracle we survive this and manage to save Saúl, he’d kill me. Or he wouldn’t speak to me until the end of times. Touching someone else’s donor is worse than sleeping with their spouse.” 

“But if we...”

“No. Friends don’t do that. Period.” 

“Then what are you going to do? Have a rare steak?”

“I’ll manage. Now we have to find a safe place. Wouldn‘t want to be outside when they start to come out.”

Javier frowns and looks around like something is supposed to surround them at that very moment. “ _They_?”

“Creatures of the night.”

Javier just gulps. If there is something else than vampires, something even the vampires are afraid of, he doesn’t even want to know what it is.

 

* * *

 

The building they enter looks like nothing that could protect them from the creatures Óliver mentioned earlier, but at least it’s a roof above their heads. It’s some abandoned mansion that got saved from homeless people, squatters and junkies probably by looking too scary even for those.

The wallpaper is peeling off the walls and the air smells of old wood and dust and Javier doesn’t want to think of what might live in the saggy upholstery of the old sofa, but bugs and dust are still better than the vampire Council. Óliver looks around contentedly, then heads to the door. 

“Where are you going?” Javier asks. Óliver is a vampire, but vampires are already familiar. It feels better to be with one of them than alone.

“Do you really want to know?” Óliver asks.

“No,” Javier admits.

“Fine. Stay here. You should be safe.”

“And if... something appears? What shall I do?”

Óliver scratches his head. “Pray.”

“It will help?”

“No, but that’s what humans always do before death, or not?”

Javier sighs. “I see where your friendship with Saúl is coming from.”

 

* * *

 

When Javier wakes up, the room is filled with pinkish light and there is a familiar face above him. It actually looks like Óliver was watching him sleep for some time, and Javier tries not to think about how creepy it is.

“Morning,” Óliver grins.

He looks a lot better than the night before. Like he’s gotten a couple hours of healthy sleep. Javier knows that sleep is not the key to his cheerful mood, but he prefers not to ask questions on this subject. “May I ask you why you are watching me sleep?” he asks instead. It’s not like he really wants to know that either, though. 

Óliver doesn’t even look embarrassed. “I wanted to know what Saúl likes about you,” he shrugs. “I still don’t get it, but never mind.”

Javier just makes a face and sits up. Óliver pushes a bag of pastry and a paper cup with coffee towards him. “Breakfast,” he says. “Try to drink the coffee discreetly, it tempts me. Thanks.” 

“Why don’t you drink it, then?” Javier asks, picking at a _palmera_. 

“After having... um, after last night, it wouldn’t be a good idea. I’d be bouncing around like a rubber ball. I tried that once. Saúl says I bit him when he was trying to hold me still, although I maintain that it didn’t really happen.” 

Javier puts the _palmera_ back in the bag. “Speaking of Saúl,” he says and clears his throat. “When are we going to start planning?”

“I am already planning,” Óliver says. “That is, crossing off possibilities that wouldn’t work. I’ve already crossed off about a hundred and I think I’ll add another hundred today, because, sweetheart, _nothing_ will ever work.”

Javier crosses his arms, totally ignoring the mocking _sweetheart_ Óliver has just called him. “Why shouldn’t it work?”

“Because you’re a human and I’m an inferior vampire not even worth having his blood donor. And we’re facing the vampire Council. Vampires that are fucking _thousands_ years old. That defeated the werewolf army in 305 AD and have ruled the world ever since.”

“But I don’t want to overthrow them, I don’t want to rule the world! I just want...” Javier yells until his voice breaks and becomes only a whisper. “I just want Saúl back.”

Óliver stares at him for a while, like he is studying him or looking for something. But when he moves, Javier realizes that he wasn‘t trying to do either of that. He was trying to remember something.

“I know,” Óliver whispers, and his voice and face are as close to crying as they possibly can be when he wraps his arms around Javier. “I know.”

 

* * *

 

“What is the difference between an alpha and a... regular vampire?” Javier asks. Talking seems to be the only thing they can do together, given that they are hiding in an old empty house and have quite a few vampires looking for them. When Óliver goes to get food, he actually looks like he’s about to go to a battle he might not return from.

“An alpha can turn people,” Óliver says and takes another bite of the Big Mac. “The alphas are the original vampires. Those that were here since the beginning.”

“Saúl isn’t an alpha, right?”

“Nope. Alphas are rare. But his father is.”

“But it’s not his... real father, right?” 

“Of course not,” Óliver rolls his eyes. “His real parents are dead. But these were his parents since the sixteenth century, so... I guess he doesn’t even remember the real ones.” 

“And what will your vampire parents say about you disappearing with a human?” 

“I can’t say that I care,” Óliver makes a face. “Our relationship is a bit complicated.” 

“Because?” 

“Because I’m weird,” Óliver says and it sounds like he’s annoyed with himself. “Because I never stopped grieving my real parents. Mainly my mother seems to have a problem with me.”

“So you remember them but Saúl doesn’t?” Javier frowns. “How come?”

“It’s hard to explain,” Óliver sighs. “When you become a vampire, it can go in many ways. You can just accept it, the transformation and all, erase your human side so that all that remains is your human body. Or you can fight it. Hold onto what’s left. Memories, feelings, cravings...”

“I think I know which way you chose.” 

“Yeah.”

Javier picks up a French fry and nibbles at it before looking at Óliver. “So an alpha could turn me,” he says.

Óliver almost chokes on the Big Mac. “Well,” he says. “An alpha could turn you, theoretically speaking. But why would the alpha do that?”

“Isn’t it what vampires do?” 

“The hell it isn’t,” Óliver rolls his eyes. “Vampires don’t want to turn all mankind into vampires because who would they feed on then? There are quotas, a certain number of vampires, and turning people is forbidden unless the Council finds it necessary.” 

Javier pretends to examine his cup of coke closely to hide the hurt. Óliver drops his food and takes the cup from him, looking in his eyes so intensely that Javier can practically feel him _inside his soul_. “You don’t want to become a vampire,” Óliver says and it sounds like one of those motivational CDs that are supposed to clean your chakras and awaken your subconscious. “Trust me. You don’t.”

“But I love him,” Javier objects, feeling stupid, and desperate, and small. 

“Because you’re human,” Óliver states. “Two vampires can’t love each other. Not really. Not like... like, well, like what you and Saúl have.” 

“But you do love him,” Javier says and lifts his hand to stop Óliver when he takes a breath. “I know you do, and I don’t mind. But how can you say vampires can’t love when you obviously do?”

“I told you,” Óliver mumbles, and if he didn’t know it was impossible, Javier would swear that he is blushing. “I’m weird.”

 

* * *

 

The pale light is pouring in through the dirty windows. Óliver almost dances in, humming some ancient song that was probably popular centuries before Javier was born. His mood is incredible every time he comes back in the morning. It almost makes Javier want to experience something like that himself, except that the blood involved puts him off a little bit.

“Got a good quality food?” he asks casually. His relationship with Saúl taught him to joke about his own blood. Making jokes about some poor victim’s blood is a bit frightening, but the situation is somehow making him more cynical.

“It’s rather about quantity,” Óliver sighs and sits down. “You know, if you don’t have your own donor and you feed on your parents’ ones, you can’t take as much as you want. Your parents control that. So now it’s like... uh... freedom in liquid form.”

Javier just shakes his head and sips on the coffee in a paper cup. “Have you thought of something?” he asks then. “I mean...” 

“Yes,” Óliver sighs. “But it’s so utterly crazy that I prefer not to mention it.”

“Crazy is good,” Javier objects. “Crazy always works.”

“Well, there’s a vampire hunter that lives nearby,” Óliver says. “He’s really good. He’s managed to clean the city of all vampires that didn’t respond to the Council.”

“But not of those who did?” 

“No, because he wasn’t able to find us. He’s basically retired now, as there are no more vampires he could hunt. But legend has it he’s still keeping his silver arrow for Simeone.”

“Would you like to borrow it from him?” Javier grins.

“No, but I will not try to stop him when he shoots it at him.” 

“Awesome!” Javier says. “Can we go to him now?” 

Óliver sighs deeply. “And I now know where _your_ relationship with Saúl is coming from.”

 


End file.
